Timelapse

Product Retouching – Furniture – BTS Timelapse

Product retouching is all about fine tuning the subject to ensure it looks as good as possible. A majority of the post production work on this shot is aimed at cleaning up the area so there are no distractions whatsoever. The beauty of a simple background like this is it really lets the product command center stage. We knocked down the glare on the right chair and enhanced the highlights and shadows on both chairs to further define the shape. Beyond that it was cleaning up the floor and dodging and burning the areas that were recessed. Then there was the white wall. At first glance its quite hard to see any problems. By pulling down a curves layer you can quickly see the areas that need attention, mainly the top of the frame where the shadows were inconsistent. There wasn’t to much heavy lifting in post but rather a refinement and cleanup of what was already there.

Filming Above London

Very excited to share a small sample of our trip filming above London. Most of our time was spent filming interviews from various locations around the city. Along with workplace interviews we also captured video from a nearby rooftop overlooking an active construction site. Hard hats required!! Its interesting to see heavy duty construction equipment that typical moves very slow come to life when captured as a time lapse. There is a beauty in watching this machinery move in such fluid way, its almost like a choreographed dance routine.

We should have more timelapse to follow once we return back to the studio. Stay tuned!

The process behind retouching a panorama commercial interior is a lot more detailed then editing a single un-stitched image. This method makes for a great image but also requires a bit more work in post production (especially with added strobes). The new panorama feature in Lightroom is nice but it is completely useless when in comes to building up layers in Photoshop. The Lightroom process relies to much on automation and doesn’t give enough control over how the image should be processed. Luckily there is still the ability within Lightroom to export images to Photoshop where they can then be combined as panoramas (much more control). This method is a lot more predictable when stacking layers and ensuring they line up correctly.

Post Production

Once we had 4-5 different (panorama, natural light) exposures stacked together in Photoshop we began constructing our base image. There were a few areas that didn’t quite line up but we handled this with a little retouching. After we had our base image completed we started adding in strobe layers. To accomplish this we dropped a single strobe layer on the base panorama layer and manually lined it up by turning the strobe layer blending mode to difference (once the layer is lined up perfectly it will go dark). We checked this after the fact by toggling the layer on and off. This only works if the initial panorama was blended using the re-position method in Photoshop. The re-position method ensures the image hasn’t been stretched or altered to create the panorama but rather re-positioned and blended (otherwise adding additional layers wouldn’t line up). We went through this process every time we included a new layer or element to the image. Once everything was in place we added all the adjustment layers and did the retouching.

The process behind retouching a commercial interior is like putting together a giant puzzle; it takes a lot of time but once all the pieces are in place you then see the overall vision. Its extremely rare for us to process an image in Adobe Lightroom and call it good. We take time on site and in post production to make images that speak to our aesthetic as well as the needs of our client. For the composition below we photographed at least 50-60 images (not including lifestyle). This gave us tremendous flexibility in post production to craft an image that felt 100% natural while staying true to what the client envisioned when designing the space. There was easily a good 3-4 hours worth of retouching involved with this image. We’ve condensed it down to 10 minutes for your viewing pleasure.

We were recently commissioned to shoot a variety of exteriors in and around NYC, NJ and Boston. As you know getting around in the New York City can be a challenge, so we set ourselves up to be as mobile as possible. Gotta love the extra large sunroof.

We recently worked on an ad campaign for Bright Built Homes where we setup and photographed the elusive Big Foot neighborhood. The ad was recently published in the current issue of Maine Home & Design (see below). The video below is our trip back from Peaks Island to Portland, ME